BYD Built 10,000 Flash-Charging Stations in Six Months: One Gun Dispensed 2,983 kWh in a Day, Turnover Rivals Gas Pumps

On August 28, BYD held a completion ceremony for its 10,000th flash-charging station in Shenzhen, where Wang Junbao, head of BYD's flash-charging business, shared the figures.

The completed Shenzhen Longhua flagship is the city's first co-built flagship station and the largest flash-charging flagship in China. BYD went from its first station to ten thousand in less than half a year, including 3,000 built in July and August alone.

Wang also revealed that China's industry ministry has listed the second-generation Blade battery and flash-charging technology as national heavyweight innovations, alongside the Beidou satellite system and the C919 airliner.

Coverage density was the heavyweight information in this announcement. BYD's flash-charging stations have reached 332 cities, with 100% coverage of tier-one and tier-two cities and an average urban spacing of 1.9 miles (3 km) in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Xi'an, while tier-three and tier-four cities are also fully covered at an average spacing of 2.5 miles (4 km).

The network stretches from Hulunbuir in Inner Mongolia in the north to Sanya, Hainan in the south, and from Shuangyashan, Heilongjiang in the east to Kashgar, Xinjiang in the west. More than 4,200 of the 10,000 stations came from a user wish-list program, corresponding to 74,281 location requests from users.

The most striking operational figure is turnover. On August 22, a single flash-charging gun at a Beijing auto-city station dispensed a record 2,983 kWh in one day, while a typical fast charger with two guns managing 500 kWh daily is already considered high, meaning this one gun matched a normal station's entire week.

BYD's own research shows a gas pump serves about 50 cars a day and a public charging point about 5, while a flash-charging gun can handle 54, closing in on refueling in both charging speed and turnover. On timing, a meaningful top-up takes five minutes and a 10% to 97% charge takes nine minutes, with only three extra minutes at minus 22°F (-30°C).

From the first station going live in March to the end of August, the network delivered over 200 million kWh cumulatively, with total users exceeding 1.83 million, nearly a third of them owners of other brands.

On ecosystem and expansion, BYD opened its first Sinopec co-built flash-charging flagship in East China at Shanghai's Hongqiao in early August, and will next accelerate deployment with CNPC, China Resources, Shell and charging operator Teld, while working with Alipay, Amap and JD.com on seamless payment and site amenities.

Two thousand highway flash-charging stations are coming soon, the 20,000-station year-end target stands, and 6,000 more are planned overseas, with sites already landing in Europe and the Americas.

That said, full megawatt-level power currently only works on BYD's own 1,000V-platform models, so the third of users from other brands are effectively getting a discounted version of flash charging.

In horizontal comparison, the pace remains remarkable. Tesla has spent over a decade building its Supercharger network and has roughly seven thousand stations worldwide, while BYD put up ten thousand in six months.